Purdy: One Shark player says the Warriors’ player-resting trend is not cool

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San Jose Sharks’ Marc-Edouard Vlasic (44) fires the puck against the Chicago Blackhawks in the first period of their NHL game at SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Tuesday, January 31, 2017. (Josie Lepe/Bay Area News Group)

Hockey players must look at the NBA debate over whether top players should be rested during tough stretches of the season and . . . well, chortle through their face shields.

In the NHL, there are just as many back-to-back games and even more physical contact. The road grind includes even more far-flung trips to places like Edmonton and Winnipeg. Yet the healthy players never sit. At most, they might receive fewer shifts if the coach thinks they’re showing weariness. But they suit up every game.

Are hockey players envious that in the NBA, there’s now different standard? They must be. Right? Last Saturday, both the Warriors and San Antonio Spurs’ coaches decided to bench some of their stars to keep them fresher for the upcoming playoffs. Hockey players are notoriously polite and diplomatic. But when the subject of the NBA’s rest-em-now at least one Shark wasn’t afraid to express his thoughts about a professional athlete’s obligations.

“If you’re healthy enough to play, play,” said Marc-Eduoard Vlasic, the Sharks’ all-time leader in games played by a defenseman. “Get your days off on the other days. Why not?”

Valsic, speaking before Tuesday night’s home game against Buffalo, knew only the vague details about the Warriors’ sit-out Saturday in San Antonio last weekend. But after it was explained to him that Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala had been benched by Warriors’ coach Steve Kerr at the end of an exhausting road trip, Vlasic only was more firm in his opinion.

Does he think that the “rest-em-for-later” movement will ever migrate to the NHL?

“I hope not,” Vlasic said.

Why?

“If they’re injured, I get it,” Vlasic said. “But if I’m a fan and I come to the hockey game and my four best players — let’s say Thornton, Pavelski, Burns, Vlasic — aren’t playing, I’m going to be very disappointed. If they’re injured, I’ll understand. But if they’re not . . . I mean, if it’s one guy, I get it. But five guys, four or five guys? No.”

It should be noted that the choice to rest on Saturday was Kerr’s, not the players’ decision. Vlasic understood that. Also, the choice to rest the four Warriors occurred at the end of a backbreaking schedule stretch of eight games in eight cities over 13 days. Saturday night’s “rest” game was also the second of back-to-back contests on consecutive nights in Minneapolis and San Antonio.

But it’s not as if the Sharks’ schedule has been easy-peezy. Back in October, the beloved Los Tiburones had their own meat-grinder road trip back east, with five games in eight days. In December, there was another roadie with four games in six days. The final month of the Sharks’ regular season includes three sets of back-to-back road games (at Dallas and Minnesota, at Dallas and Nashville, at Edmonton and Calgary). That’s more back-to-backs than any other NHL playoff contending team.

Vlasic plans to play in all six of those back-to-back games. He also played in all five games during that October road trip. Vlasic is proud that at age 29, he just put his 800th NHL game on his resume. But when asked again if he was jealous of the NBA’s suddenly-less-stringent paradigm, Vlasic insisted he wasn’t. He wants no part of being a healthy scratch.

“I had a day off yesterday,” Vlasic said, meaning that no Shark practice was scheduled. “And I’ll have a day off Friday. So I’m good. I’m good. And if I’d done that (taken a game night off), I wouldn’t be at 800 games right now, so … I’m just saying if I keep getting days off, at the end of my career, I’m going to be 10 games short of something.”

A few seconds later, Vlasic added: “If you’re in the NBA, you’re there to play, right? If you’re in the NHL, you’re there to play.”

And a few seconds after that: “They do things differently than we do … And every coach coaches differently.”

Overhearing our NHL-vs-NBA comparison conversation a few locker spaces away, Shark defenseman Dylan DeMelo broke in and added this comment: “We don’t get paid as much as they do, either.”

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